Poem 9

For today's prompt, I want you write a poem about a memory. The memory can be good or bad. The memory can be a blend of several memories. I suppose it could even be a memory that you're not sure you remember correctly. Take your time finding a good one (or good ones).

* * *

The only detail in the truth I changed in this poem is that I'm pretty sure it wasn't Good Friday when I found this rabbit as a child, but it was in the spring. We were pretty young, 8 or 9, and did our best to deal with what we thought was the worst situation in the world.



Finding a Dead Rabbit on Good Friday


Because we believed
the Lord had created
the Easter Bunny, now dead,
in the street, we found a box
to place it in, white
fur, hard from the blood, face
peaceful, a sleeping
rabbit we'd said, if it wasn't
for the gash in its side,
the broken legs.
We buried it
next to the freeway,
made a cross of rocks in the earth
above it, to mark
its place, one spotted
shell we had found
set in the center.
Later, when we returned
to bring flowers to the grave,
the shell was moved
from center to side. Not me,
we said as we accused the other,
then decided to believe, like Jesus,
the Easter Bunny had risen,
the stone pushed from the tomb,
now a shell, another God
had died and kept the tradition.


* * *

Poem 7

Oh these are getting harder and I'm getting them done later and later!

Today's prompt from Poetic Asides--

Today is our first "Two for Tuesday" prompt of the month. On these days, I offer two prompts. Don't worry: You don't need to write a poem for each prompt (but you're more than welcome to if you feel up to the challenge).

Prompt #1: I want you to write a clean poem. Take this however you wish. Clean language, clean subject matter, or cleaning the dishes. Of course, some twisted few will automatically link "cleaning" with hired hitmen. That's okay, as long as your poem is somehow linked to clean.

Prompt #2: I want you to write a dirty poem. Take all that stuff I wrote in the first prompt and twist it upside down. The opposite of clean is dirty; so, do what ya gotta do to produce a dirty poem. (Gosh, I hope this challenge doesn't get too messy as a result.)




Voices in the Laundry


Forgive us for being wrinkled,
faded, torn, inside-out and stained.
We feel better when we are on your body,
when we are neatly placed in a drawer.

You see, we forgive you for leaving us
in the bathroom (how many weeks?)
covered in a splotch of jam
or with wet edges, still damp on denim
capris from the day you waded in.

Shake us out. We like it.
Let us hang from a line, we’re tough
like that. There are no secrets
you can keep from us—blood
or sweat, we know when and where

before others. We are the first thing
you reach for when you step from the shower—
towel, towel, bathrobe.
And the last thing you put on (or take off)
before you go to bed.

I know you feel we’re killing the feminist
in you. The woman who believes she is more
than a basket of clothes, a history
from mother to daughter to daughter to daughter.

But we are your constant, your proof
that life does not have to be
difficult, but dryer-fresh.

And we like how you hold us,
your fingers folding our corners, straightening
the crease. Don’t see us as a burden,
but a meditation—this is what you wear,
what you are—but we know how sometimes
you despise us. We wish we could fold ourselves.


*

NaPoWriMo Poem 5

From Poetic Asides--

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about a landmark. It can be a famous landmark (like Mount Rushmore or the Sphinx) or a little more subdued (like the town water tower or an interesting sign).

Landmarks


You bring out the Statue
of Liberty in me, the Space
Needle and Kingdome—now exploded
and missing in me.

It’s 2 a.m. and a road trip,
the Welcome
To Las Vegas Sign still flashing
in me.

On the Golden Gate Bridge, you lean
and whisper, something—
I don’t hear, the inmates
are clanging their cups on the bars,

the Alcatraz in me. And the story
should end
with the Mardi Gras beads
and the flooded city in me,

but it doesn’t, French
Quarter Jazz and bourbon,
it ends on the Grand Canyon
trail ride in me. We were traveling

by donkey, by foot, by repelling
down the Alamo in me—wait,
it’s so much smaller. My I *heart*
NY t-shirt, the Bloomingdales bag

in me. The geyser that only erupted
twice a year, the Old
and the Faithful and we are standing
in a crowd of strangers clapping

for nature, for what will only be seen
once and in every 56 minutes
for me. You bring out the buffalo
huffing at the boy with the camera

in me. Wildlife isn’t a joking matter
sign, elk, elk, moose and geyser.
Candy and maze. Postcard, postcard.
All now postmarked in me.


*

I wrote this one in the car tonight waiting for the ferry. Still not happy with the ending or the last 3 stanzas, but it's 11:35, so it's done.

NaPoWriMo - Poem 3

Hoping you are not getting too bored with these blog posts/poems. Feel free to return in May when instant poetry has stopped.

Ah yes, NaPoWriMo- filling the internet with bad poetry, one blog at a time.



But if you're following along, here was today's prompt--

From Writer's Digest blog--

Take the phrase "The problem with (blank)" and replace the "(blank)" with a word or phrase. Make this the title of your poem and then write a poem to fit with or juxtapose against that title. For instance, you could have poems with the titles of "The problem with government," "The problem with advanced mathematics," or "The problem with bipolar penguins." You know the drill: have fun, be creative.



THE PROBLEM WITH SUBURBIA


She is better-not, the flotsam
walking the sidewalks in search
of minus calories. She thinks
giddy and spellbound are words

she doesn’t say enough. Heartthrob,
another. A husband mowing the lawn
with his shirt off and his wife not noticing,
she has seen his bare chest many times
before. The wife. The neighbor.

The characters all have the same
pronouns. She’s a little shaky
from the bubble tea she had three weeks
ago or could it be the peanuts, something
is always wrong with the peanuts.

She waves to the man with little
chest hair. Heart. Throb. The voice
inside her says, Don’t seem too interested.
The voice of her mother, Never play
with married men.

They are both beautiful
with their imperfections—the woman
with her longing and the man
with his knack not to notice. She is better-

not touch the sold merchandise, the house
is off the market. She wants to go home
to a surprise party or to something smaller,
a hello from lover/husband/roommate,

if she had one. She turns the corner. Confetti,
the Yoshino cherry trees in full bloom.

NaPoWriMo - Poem 2

PROMPT: Today, I want you to write an outsider poem. You can be the outsider; someone else can be the outsider; or it can even be an animal or inanimate object that's the outsider. As usual, get creative with the prompt and don't be afraid to stretch the limits.

Forget that it took me months
to find you—



and now it's gone.

NaPoWriMo - Poem 1

From this prompt:

I want you to write an origin poem. It can be the origin of a word, person, plant, idea, etc. Have fun with it.



Because the slipper wasn’t,



poof...

NaPoWriMo #24

Not a Love Poem


Those days I was in love
with what was broken,
with trains that didn’t leave
the station, but instead watched
TV from my couch, or perhaps
that wasn’t a train in the living room,
but I had purchased a ticket
to no place special, to it’s easier
to stay inside. The radio played
silk dresses and I kept putting on
my ratty shawl. The train
on the couch kept asking for beer.
Those days I was in the love
with the phone line, with calling
out the window to people
I didn’t know and asking,
How’s the weather out there?
If you listened between rainstorms,
what I was really saying was,
We settle, we settle.

NaPoWriMo #18

*



SHORTCUT



We were unpacking the groceries
when the storm made its opening
remarks. Maybe you were in jail
and missed it. Maybe you were hanging
with the crows and their sexy suits,
but I was gustblown, a khaki kite
arguing with the wind. And off
went the Yogos, and off went the box
of tampons and my husband
grabbed Toto and went running
to the house and I became Dorothy
with an attitude and maybe
it’s a girl thing but I loved the sting
of my skin, how my hair blew
long and upwards as if it knew
a shortcut to heaven and it’s not
as if I’m trying to get to heaven early,
I’m just always looking for detours,
for the paths no one has considered,
for all the things I’ve lost along the way.



*

NaPoWriMo #18

*



SHORTCUT



We were unpacking the groceries
when the storm made its opening
remarks. Maybe you were in jail
and missed it. Maybe you were hanging
with the crows and their sexy suits,
but I was gustblown, a khaki kite
arguing with the wind. And off
went the Yogos, and off went the box
of tampons and my husband
grabbed Toto and went running
to the house and I became Dorothy
with an attitude and maybe
it’s a girl thing but I loved the sting
of my skin, how my hair blew
long and upwards as if it knew
a shortcut to heaven and it’s not
as if I’m trying to get to heaven early,
I’m just always looking for detours,
for the paths no one has considered,
for all the things I’ve lost along the way.



*

NaPoWriMo #17

AFTER THIRTY-NINE YEARS, GOD RESPONDS


Dear Daughter,

There is no need to explain
your bad behavior. We were all young
once and know temptation is the key
to an unlocked door.

You have no resistance to love,
but no understanding of it either.

Your foreign language is not of guns,
but of tenderness, the control you try
to have on how you feel.

There is compassion everywhere
and hairspray a few dollars more
that will do the trick.

There is no need to sleep
anywhere except the moment.
Your checkbook is important
but no one ever found happiness
in plus signs, no one ever invited
her bank account over for tea.

NaPoWriMo # 15 on taxday

Assignment: Write a letter to God. Have Her/Him respond.




After Thirty-Nine Years, the Child Readdresses the Parent


Dear Father,
I’m writing to explain my bad behavior.
My unlikely resistance to love.
There’s a foreign language
of semi-automatic weapons I’ve tried
to understand, an unstoppable
reign, but I’m asking
where do I find compassion
and why does my hairspray clog after one use.
It may be necessary to sleep
against a tombstone to understand
the difference between now
and then, but I’m listening. While I balance
my checkbook, I’m listening to anything
you have to say.

NaPoWriMo #14

Absentee Landlord


We write letters to God
and God doesn’t answer

in words, but in blue jays
and bullfrogs, in hummingbird

beaks. We are spinning
our wings and hungry.
What God doesn’t say is
Humvees attract the ladies,

Gimme gimme more, gimme more
and it’s not enough.

God says through the daffodils,
Allergy season is three weeks away.

Your father died and you still feel
that pain. We write our wills

so others can care for our cast-offs,
the burden of being

young and alive in small spaces.
No one wants the ceramic

Dalmatian. No one wants
years of the soap on a rope.

We donate to charities.
We don’t eat for weeks

after we lose our opening act,
the comedian in the wide tie

who liked to drink scotch
before his routine. Our bodies

grow up and out, we see
veins in our reflections.

We finger prayers, a steamy
bathroom mirror and they drip

into the sink. There’s no room
for new towel rack, our shelves

spill with pills, razors speak
in a whisper: Come here.

We fill storage units with linens,
an old headboard, but what we need

is sleep, what we need is the squawk
of a blue jay to wake us up.

NaPoWriMo Lucky 13

Writing Prompt for anyone interested--
Find a recipe with an interesting name and incorporate parts of the recipe into your poem.





She Adds a Dash of Cumin to Lucky Pea Soup


She dices the peppers. Thirty-nine

degrees and falling. Last night, her birthday

and the woman she was raised her pen

to the moon to crossed out another year,

wrote loss. She sees her body in the curve

of the letters and not the words.

She sees the letters she never wrote

in the chili powder. She places bacon

in the skillet and the pop of grease

surprises her, a celebration of heat.

She cannot tell you why she cried

in spice aisle of the grocery store,

why she turned away when she saw a friend

she knew. It’s easier to suffer alone,

with a cold night and diced tomatoes.

It’s easier to suffer when moonlight

is your best lighting, when the fine lines

only appear near the window.

She cannot imagine her lifespan

without black-eyed peas, without

someone to share them with.

She knows her husband will return soon.

She knows she cannot push away sadness.

She adds a dash of cumin because it keeps

the chickens and lovers from straying.

She stirs together what she’s mixed.


* * * * *


LUCKY PEA SOUP



INGREDIENTS

· 4 slices bacon

· 1 green bell pepper, chopped

· 1 small onion, chopped

· 2 (15 ounce) cans black-eyed peas, undrained

· 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained

· 1 cup water

· 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

· 1 1/4 teaspoons cumin

· 1 1/4 teaspoons dry mustard

· 1 teaspoon chili powder

· 1/2 teaspoon curry powder

· 1/2 teaspoon pepper

· 1/2 teaspoon sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the bacon in a skillet and cook over medium-high heat until crisp and evenly brown. Drain on paper towels. When cool, crumble into small pieces.

2. Using the same skillet, add the peppers and onion; stir and cook over medium-high heat until transparent and tender, about 5 minutes.

3. Pour the black beans, tomatoes, and water into a large pot. Stir in the peppers, onion, salt, cumin, dry mustard, chili powder, curry powder, pepper, and sugar. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer 20 to 25 minutes. Serve hot sprinkled with bacon, and other toppings of your choice.

NaPoWriMo #11

Oops, wrote this, but forgot to post this.


The Day They Drank Sangria

I.
After Sangria the alphabet became a blanket
between us. We spoke in clinking, in constant
chatter of an hourglass, the language of gender
disrupting our meal. If we could stay simple, say—
eggplant and caramelized onions on flatbread,
finding the Dalai Lama blessing Seattle,
goldfinches on a gray day. We raised our glasses in
hope and compassion, wiped our table of fear.


II.
In a world where our questions are answered
just to keep us quiet, we slam our glasses on the table,
karma to the faithful, confusion to the rest, we
listen to the language of las sirenas, the thirsty fruit
meshed with drink. All day women appeared with
nothing on—not resentment, not fear—and we wondered
over again if we had wandered into a
parallel universe where everything equaled beauty. We
questioned and we questioned again.


III.
Remember when the waitress returned with nothing?
She asked if we loved the swollen fruit and we
thought she believed our tongues could no longer speak.
Understand, we are gods with large vocabularies,
vocal and ready to sing. Understand we are ready to
win back the words used against us—bitch, cunt—
X-out the politicians who let them slide from their mouths.
Yes we are angry, but we’re organized, and we’ll choose
zest over milquetoast. We’ll choose what we want to give away.

NaPoWriMo #10

Assignment:
Write a poem (or sonnet) for someone who is alive.


This one is a little on the sentimental side, but a poem for the day and a poem for my mum (who will think it's perfect).



Poem for My Mother Before She Dies





You ask me to write you a poem now and

not wait until you die and all day I’ve

tried to put you in a poem, sonnet

to sestina, find motherhood in strict

language, but what is motherhood except

the broken bricks a daughter walks across,

not words, but a stitch sewn into the chest.

How can I give thanks immense enough?

You’re the beaded purse holding everything

I need, the neighborhood I never left.

So here’s a poem to living, to Sunnyside,

to this afternoon you visited, said

Please don’t wait until I die. I waved

as you drove away, watchful as a child.

NaPoWriMo Number 9, Number 9, Number 9

Writing Assignment: - Choose one word and learn everything you can about it (song/movie/book references, its history, its origin, etc), then write a poem about it.


Some Better Place



When I say crazy is a bird spinning over my head,

you tell me it’s just peri-menopause, the war,

it’s living in a small town with so many trampolines.



I find crazy in the dictionary—

the act of obsession, brainsick, unsound,

bizarre or fantastic, extremely impractical.



You say there are better places to look for crazy.

You say: high school, post office, mirror.



I remind you, unbelievable things happen

because of crazy, like the man who followed me

through a downtown street saying he wanted to kill me

with kindness, handed me a fifty, and disappeared.



You call strangers with cash a miracle, but I believe

all humans are gods with different wallet sizes, gods who live

for funerals, for fury, for free meals at Sizzler.



When I say crazy is doing the same thing over and over

again and expecting a different outcome, you say, Repeat that.



Yes, I say, I’m going, I’m almost, destined for crazy.

You say, Would you like me to seduce you?

Is that what you’re trying to tell me?



We break bread with no crust, clink glasses of plastic.

I tell if you if I could choose my own last name it would be

Robinson or Springsteen. You say you’d just go by Seal.



We listen to Patsy Cline and I admit I’m the crazy bird

spinning in my own head and you say you’re thankful

for my breakdowns, it gives you some time to rest.









Note: Title from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, “…some better place, Fitter for sickness and for crazy age…”

NaPoWriMo #8

Soft Spot


What if I told you I’m nostalgic
for five minutes ago, for the how it was,
not the how it is?

What if I said sometimes I miss the scent of clove
cigarettes, the cuff of your overcoat
heavy with smoke?

Truth be told
not so much anymore, but a slouch
of memory, the pages

of fresh orange juice on a beach I don’t know
the name of, the Grateful Dead tie you wore to the play.

I don’t remember the play, but the man
who sat in front of me, a redhead with moss green eyes.

What if I told you much of what I remember
is garbled and lost, my life
a cassette knotted and tied?

I’ve never been good at making speeches (I remember this)
but the name Lenny Salsa lives in my mind,
though I can’t remember what he did.

Let me remind you, your grin is the only gun
you ever need, my favorite murder with teeth.

Tell me something I won’t choke on.

Tell me with the lights cut out. With sesame oil
on your palms, with another moment I’ll probably,
hopelessly, forget.

NaPoWriMo #7

Closet of Forgotten Birds


She says her therapist has become her
father, he wants so much for me.
She’s begun to speak to please him.
She says she’s leaving

her abusive boyfriend, finding a life
where her windows have lace curtains.
She says she’s afraid she’ll let down
her therapist. She knows his favorite ties

and that his shoes are double-knotted.
Sometimes when she is shopping for her
boyfriend, she finds a tie covered with birds.
She says her therapist sometimes gazes

out the window and she believes he’s watching
the robins drunk on summer stumble
from limb to limb. He told her memories
are gifts we can choose not to open.

He said, Take the gifts you don’t want
and place them in the back of your mind.
They will disappear as you allow the space
to disregard them. She says sometimes

when she awakes in the morning
the memories she’s tried to store
in the closet of disappearing come
tumbling out and unwrap themselves
to reveal all she’s tried to forget.

Some thoughts on NaPoWriMo

So, we're on day 6 of writing a poem a day for National Poetry Month.

Here are some thoughts on the process --


1) First, I have to be honest, I've been writing a poem a day since St. Patty's day with about 6 other poets, so by the time April 1st rolled around, I actually felt a little "warmed up" to the process. If I do this again next year (which I'm guessing I will), I will probably start on St. Patrick's day again as I like the extra time to get me moving (this is similar to me starting a New Year's Resolution a few days before New Year's just to get a head start. I know, I'm such a Capricorn).

2) It's not easy for me to post these poems on my blog. They are new and fresh and pretty much unrevised. In a way it's like posting my arteries on my blog and hoping no one points out the plaquey build-up.

3) The revision process-- I am a huge believer and fan of revision. I've never been from the Allen Ginsberg school of "First thought, best thought" (though those of you who are quite familiar with Ginsberg's work will know that he was always revising especially with "HOWL" (which he spent at least a year revising). However, there is a certain energy that first drafts of poems have the trick is to revise without losing that spark.

4) The poems I've posted on my blog have been revised slightly, but not enough for me to consider them ready to send out to the world. For that to happen, I need to sit with the poems awhile, continue revising them and make sure they are smart and pretty babies on their own because many times I just love them because I'm their mother.

5) What I've been learning-- Since it's baseball season again, let's talk poetry as a sport. I've learned the more I warm up and practice at writing, the better I am. I learn that the more I sit down dedicatedly (my word) to write a poem, the easier they come and the better prepared I am for the moment. Just as a baseball player practices and doesn't just show up on the field expecting a homerun, I've noticed that writing each day can produce a similar effect--there are more home runs and less strike outs when I show up. Of course, some of this comes back to quantity, if I write more, the more I have to choose from when I revise.

6) I've learned sometimes when I think there isn't a poem anywhere near me, there is. I've learned that poems sometimes come from thin air. Like The Midnight Disease, as I look back on that poem, I have no idea where it came from. Where was I pulling these images from? How did I move from line to line? I have no idea. It was written from the place of "flow," that timeless place where you're writing and clocks stop.

7) Of all the poems I've written (all 6), I like The Midnight Disease best.

8) I appreciate your notes and good words on my poems when I post them. It keeps me going. So thank you for the energy to write another one and keep posting.

NaPoWriMo #6

Goodbye Stranger


When I said there must be another way,
she said sunrise is sunrise is sunrise.
She said wait. She said stop.

When I said I’ve never understood the truth,
she said listen to starshine, listen to Supertramp.
She said there are a million of us all with the fear

of being average, all singing in the shower,
all making acceptance speeches with the hairbrush.
What she didn’t say was never. What she didn’t say

was melody. Thankful curbstone. Russian thistle
growing through the fence. There must be another
way to say the sunrise never equals itself,

that truth depends on a moment. I have waited
for people who never showed up, for old boyfriends
who promised to return. I have stopped believing

in doorbells, in the scent of homecoming. I stopped
believing there must be another way,
that technology = better. Each morning we read

each other our horoscopes. Hers said, Trust is not
a trivial manner & an invitation is coming your way.
What mine didn’t say: There’s a Grammy

with your name on it. There’s a curbstone that trusts
your butt. And the faces that never returned,
they’re quiet, but they think of you often.